Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/786708
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2017 20 Sport SPORTTODAY FOOTBALL Ranieri: I'm still the right man Claudio Ranieri believes he remains the right man to lead Leicester away from relegation trouble THE champions suffered a fifth straight Premier League defeat at Swansea on Sunday as first-half goals from Alfie Mawson and Martin Olsson saw the Welsh club boost their own survival hopes, climbing above Leicester in the table. The 2-0 defeat leaves Rani- eri's team just one place and one point above the bottom three and increased the chances of them becoming the first defending champions to be relegated since Manchester City in 1938. Despite another setback, Ranieri is not questioning his own posi- tion at the end of a week in which Leicester's owners felt the need to publicly back their manager. "Yes, I think I am still the right man for the job," said the 65-year- old Italian. "I always question myself but I always say 'come on, we can do something good'. "I think the strength of the man is to have the right balance. Not to be so high when you win; not to be so down when you lose. "You can remember what we did last season but you need to stay with your feet on the ground and say we have to react together. "I don't think the players have lost belief. When I listen to them speaking, they want to react and do something better. That is im- portant because I am confident when I listen to these words. "But we have to find a solution soon." Ranieri believes he may have been too loyal to his misfiring players and suggested he may now be ready to ditch some of his struggling stars after ther perfor- mance at the Liberty Stadium. The likes of Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and Danny Drinkwa- ter have been pale imitations of the players who were pivotal to Leicester's title triumph and they were off the pace again in South Wales. "I could be (too loyal), could be," Ranieri said. "It is difficult when you achieve something so good, you want to give them one chance, two chances, three chances. May- be now, it is too much. "Of course I must change some- thing because it is not possible to continue in this way." Swansea, meanwhile, are on the crest of a wave. The Swans have climbed from the bottom of the table to 15th since Paul Clement took over at the turn of the year, and the head coach praised his team. "I have been impressed with our belief," he said. "I don't know what it was like before but it has been good since I have been here. "The first time I walked in was before the Crystal Palace game at the hotel. The team had been picked, I asked them if they were up for the fight, they showed it straight away and have done every game since." The one low point for Swansea was an Achilles injury suffered by Nathan Dyer during the opening exchanges and Clement admitted the initial prognosis was not good. "I don't know how bad it is until he has a scan," he said. "The initial prognosis doesn't look very good." Claudio Ranieri Pogba unfazed by price tag, brother says ahead of showdown PAULPOGBA has no concerns over the huge transfer fee paid for his move to Manchester United but he does get angry when he loses, according to his brother Florentin, who will face his younger sibling in the Europa League this week. The French midfielder returned to United from Juventus for a world record fee of 89 million pounds ($111.63 million) in Au- gust and Florentin believes the hype surrounding the transfer does not concern his brother in the slightest. "In terms of being the world's most expensive play- er, I think he has put that to one side because it's more an issue for the media -- he is not letting it bother him," St Etienne defender Florentin told reporters. "Even though everything he does gets three or four times more attention, good or bad. He can handle all of that because of the mental strength he has had since his youth. He is quite ir- ritable though, he doesn't like to lose. "His head starts buzzing when he loses. I learned to lose and I would say that you're not losing but learning. But for him, when he loses, he goes mad... He can win all the trophies in the world, but he'll still be my little brother." The brothers will need to put family ties aside when they face each other for the first time as professionals when United visit the French side in the first leg of their round-of-32 Europa League clash on Thursday. "These two games will be emotional and I hope we'll take something positive from them," Florentin added. "Even if United are a great club, anything is pos- sible in football. The fact they're better than us on paper doesn't matter." Paul Pogba